Cog
by skydog91
Summary: A steep adventure into confusion and gore, follow the Grime's family through their peculiar journey. It starts on Christmas Eve and ends with nights filled with terror.
1. Chapter 1

** Cog**

I

It was a bitter cold Christmas Eve, the Grime family was ecstatic for what tomorrow morning brought. The gifts, stockings, jewels, and currency increase. They skittered to bed as the chimney spewed its last bit of smoke.

The night seemed peaceful, they were all resting in deep comfort. A group of unspecified spiders skittered along the outskirts of Rick and Lori's bedroom. Autumn gossamer hung from the outside porch. No infestation.

Rick rolled over to Lori awaking after hearing what sounded like a gasp. Hands embracing around her lungs. Sexual discomfort being whispered in her ear. Rick's tension increasing then the world collapsed. It was just a dream. Glancing now at his wife whom appeared comfortable. Closing his eyes he faded back into sleep.

Through a small pair of binoculars a fresh pair of eyes feasted contact on a young boy. He licked his lips, fresh food. Children were easier to decease as their fight back wasn't as intense. With a sarcastic grin he made his descent from his hiding spot toward the home.

Sneaking a neighbor's abandoned steel rustic ladder that was left laying diagonally in their yard, the man placed it up towards the boy's room. As the man ascended he refrained from making much noise. He leapt through the window, which was mistakenly left unlocked the day prior when they were painting.

The man groped the child's hair as his body flinched, springing upward awakening from deep sleep. A silent scream let out, no parents awoke. The intruded with a small needle and thread sewed his eyeballs diagonally, stretching and bursting all forms of sight. The child now in dire pain let out his final screams as footsteps, running, came to the door. The intruder escaped sliding down the ladder leaving the child alive to suffer.

Rick grabbed his son's hand, Lori on the opposite side of the bed. A family doctor came to house as he had always done when the Grimes fell ill or were injured. He unsewn the stitching as the pupils detached and the eyeballs fell onto his white sheets. The child in shock would take his last breath and an intruder would go hungry.

II

The room with the cog machine with its ostentatious design. The murderer sat in starvation. He was unsure how his victim was doing, probably dead he figured. He knew he had to go back to get revenge on those fuckers who awoke during his procedure.

_Revenge comes with prices_

_ like flickering Christmas lights_

_ they shined delightfully but with_

_ each flicker you feel you lose their beauty. _


	2. Chapter 2

Cog Chapter Two

III

Two eyeballs floating in a water-filled jar, it was like a cremation vase for the Grime family. Lori was distraught after the death of her child, Christmas was canceled. Rick burned all the presents and their romance spiraled downward. Divorce lingered on the horizon, they disdained each other. The fighting seemed to increase as months passed.

Bodies swung on silver-lined hooks as the cog machine made its rotation moving each hook a few centimeters. The bodies brought no requite in the sense of survival or money, but were like a prized possession. The murderer sat under a dangling dim light that swung with each cold breeze. He felt the world was changing as population decreased, he was right.

After six months of limited or no speaking to each other, Rick broke the silence.

"Lori we need to move on. We loved our Carl very much, but Carl would not accept this" he stopped as Lori walked away into another room carrying Vogue.

_Nightfall brings pain, bloodshed._

_ Nightfall brings streetlight melodies, ballads._

IV

The sharpening of his new hunter's dagger. The innocent running free as they stumble into graves. It was time for the vagabond to return to murder more hopeless beings, but he knew it needed to be stealthier this time around.

Through his binoculars he could see father of the child he tortured standing naked attempting to impress his lady, his wife.

He noticed the man's penis erected with joy as he could now see the couple fornicating. He lowered the binoculars and headed to the front door swiftly ringing the doorbell and running to the side of the house. The man came to the door unclothed and was shouting profanity towards teenagers.

"Damn youngsters and your FUCKING pranks! I hope you can't repro-fucking-duce!"

Rick returned upstairs to pleasure his now impatient wife. The northern winds brought a chilly breeze as it blew up their sheet displaying their sexual desires to all who watched.

_I am watching._


	3. Chapter 3

Cog Chapter Three

_I suffocate with my face beneath the ocean_

_ the tides brushing up against me as the struggle_

_ to breath lingers on. Asphyxiation._

_ The dagger inserting through my tongue_

_ as he whispers his verse into my ears_

_ "Ich liebe dich mein Schatz"_

Rick rolled off his wife after their intimate session. The feeling of love quickly faded like the home's electricity. Rick glanced down the hall as a giant wave of water passed through him. He jolted his body against the wall as he headed through the water as the intruder's eyes glowed through an intimate waterfall that formed in the corner.

The intruder glanced down at his binoculars which were no decayed from a collision with a detached piece of plywood from a Grime's unfinished project. A plant pot holding violet and gold amaranth sat in the window as the intruder lowered his head remembering his mother's funeral flowers.

_Here lies Rick dangling from a tightened noose_

_ suffocating with glory, unloved._

_ Lori lies with her detached hand shoved down her throat, _

_ the intruder's sweet epitaph, so sweet._

With the rushing water's forming into solid blood and attaching itself to Rick he continued his ambush forward. Lori's screams echoed down the hall. Her eyes floating up to his knees as the blood water rose to knee height.

_ He awoke._


	4. Chapter 4

Cog Chapter Four

_We consumed the soup _

_ the Earthly recipe combined_

_ We thought it was a sign of times_

_ the dead now arising like a modern era dark age_

_ Are we banished for our gluttony?_

Rick arose around midnight to the sound of creaking footsteps. A gray wolf let out a howl in search of its mate as Rick looked for his. Lori was gone.

The family's hall hung its shadows like a distorted play. Its actors hidden in darkness as they spoke midnight elegies. The silent film of a mystery. Rick squinted his eyes as a figure walked down the hall. The figure was now running at him, but their was no way to avoid it. The asphalt figure lunged at Rick. It was Lori. _A doppelganger?_

The shadow fiddled through the walls and faded into the darkness as Rick brought himself back to his feet.

A striking calamity Rick now felt this was an omen his wife had been taken from him too, but he wanted to see for himself and continued further down the hall. The hall hung paintings by French artists, they were turned upside down with the world "_Help" _watermarked across them.

_The cog machines came to a stop._

_ The head of the murderer dangling_

_ from his own creation._

Rick entered his son's room. The unfinished room smelled of paint and carcass. In the center of the room, a body appeared buried within the carpet. Lori was submerged with pristine placement as her body was decomposing by the flooring. Her neck was dislocated and messages on her hands read,

"You are the face, the hands, the body in the water of God. Drink well."

The message baffled Rick as it was complete nonsense. Rick stood over his wife weeping. He was ready to meet his nemesis, he wanted him dead. Lori's eyes jolted to stare deep into Rick's feelings as she spoke,

"Rick, darling. I miss you dearly but my murderer is yourself. You are the epitome of this world. Your dreams killed us, you need to the end these dreams. Yourself."

_He stands over the lake of dreams_

_ holding the noose as he watches it fall into the water._

_ The setting changes as he blinks. _

_ Cogs surround him as the cheerful concoction _

_ fails their final spin. Jabbing the hook through his head, slowly._

_ The dream ends as he dangles from his creation._

Christmas morning arrived as did St. Nicholas. The Grimes embraced in a tightening hug as the cogs came to a stop.


End file.
